Plain-English guides to contracts for people who don't have a legal team — what to check before you sign, what to include when you draft, and what changed in the law this year.
Most of a lease is negotiable. A small part of it is not: clauses waiving habitability, waiving a court eviction, or letting a landlord change the locks are void in most states no matter who signed. Here is what belongs in a lease, what is unenforceable, and the figures your state sets for you.
A roommate agreement settles the dishes, the guests and the rent split. What it cannot do is change your deal with the landlord — if your roommate stops paying, the landlord can still come after you for all of it. Here is how to write one that helps anyway.
A cease and desist letter has no legal force of its own. What it does is create a dated record of notice — and, if you write it badly, hand the recipient the right to sue you first, in a court of their choosing.
Every new client asks for a W-9 before the first invoice gets paid, and getting it wrong can cost you 24% of every payment in backup withholding. Line by line: which tax classification to check, SSN or EIN, and how to tell a real request from a phishing attempt.
No employer withholds for you, so the IRS expects four payments a year — and charges interest when you skip them. The 2026–2027 deadlines, the safe-harbor rules that cap what you must pay, and a worked example of the actual math.
Tax season for freelancers is won in the fall, not in April. A month-by-month checklist from the September estimated payment through the February 1099 pile to filing — including what to do when a client never sends your 1099.
The letter that gets paid is boring: an amount, a date, an itemized table and a consequence you would actually carry out. Here is the structure, an annotated example, and the four lines that turn a demand letter into evidence against you.
A power of attorney is the most consequential document most people will ever sign, and the two mistakes that break it are the same every time: leaving out the durability language, and writing "all powers" instead of listing them. Here is what each type does and what your state requires.
A bill of sale is a receipt that proves ownership changed hands. It is two pages of nothing until the buyer claims you promised the transmission was fine — and then it is the only thing standing between you and their repair bill.
The Supreme Court struck down the IEEPA tariffs in February 2026, a 10% Section 122 surcharge replaced part of them, and Section 232 duties never moved. Here's how to write a contract that survives the next swing — and who gets to keep the refund.
AI agents now place orders, move money and screen applicants under contracts written for passive software. Here's how to close the authority gap — spending caps, scope limits, audit logs, and who is bound when the agent gets it wrong.
The Department of Labor proposed a two-factor test in February 2026 and it still isn't final. Meanwhile state ABC tests decide most real cases. What actually determines your classification — and what your contract can and can't do about it.
For payments made in 2026, the 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC filing threshold rose from $600 to $2,000 — the first change since the 1950s. Fewer forms does not mean less tax. Here's what changed, what didn't, and what to fix in your invoicing.
The FTC pulled its nationwide ban off the books in February 2026, so enforceability is now purely a question of state law — and four states changed theirs between May and July. What holds up, what doesn't, and what to use instead.
The EU AI Act's transparency rules went live on August 2, 2026. Here are the AI clauses every contract now needs — disclosure, output ownership, and confidentiality of the data you paste into AI tools.
Offer, acceptance, consideration, capacity and legality. A contract that has all five binds you even if it's a text message; one that's missing any of them doesn't bind anyone, however long and official it looks.
California, Illinois, New York and several major cities now require a written contract before a freelancer starts work. Here are the dollar thresholds, the required terms, and the penalties for skipping them.
A step-by-step checklist for reviewing any contract before you sign it — scope, payment, IP, liability, termination and the clauses people most often miss.
Yes — under the U.S. ESIGN Act, UETA and the EU's eIDAS Regulation. Here is what makes an e-signature hold up, which documents still need wet ink, and how to keep an audit trail.
The terms are used interchangeably, but the structure matters. A side-by-side comparison of one-way NDAs, mutual NDAs and confidentiality clauses — and when to use each.
Net 30, deposits, milestone billing, kill fees and late-payment interest — how to write payment terms that get honored, and what to do when an invoice goes unpaid.
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